One of the strangest manifestations of the IRS dumbassery is the now barely sub-rosa notion that, if it weren't for the jackbooted chicanery of the tax cops, operating under the secret mind-control of the president of the United States, the country would not have been deprived of President Willard Romney, for whose barely distinguishable leadership it had been hungering since 2009. They're not coming right out an saying it, yet, although Our Lady Of The Dolphins hinted at it in her epic column last week. Now, John Fund, a career journalistic ratfker who made his bones in ratfkery during the glory days of the Arkansas Project and since has moved on to "proving" that the only reason the president won twice was because of the massive voter fraud that has eluded everyone except, well, him. Now, though, he has morphed his claim in order to take in the IRS dumbassery, and it is a glory to behold. It even has a special guest appearance from a certain goggle-eyed homunculus of our casual acquaintance.

But it now turns out there may have suppression of the vote after all. "It looks like a lot of tea-party groups were less active or never got off the ground because of the IRS actions," Wisconsin governor Scott Walker told me. "Sure seems like people were discouraged by it." Indeed, several conservative groups I talked with said they were directly impacted by having their non-profit status delayed by either IRS inaction or burdensome and intrusive questioning. At least two donors told me they didn't contribute to True the Vote, a group formed to combat voter fraud, because after three years of waiting the group still didn't have its status granted at the time of the 2012 election. (While many of the targeted tea-party groups were seeking to become 501(c)(4)s, donations to which are not tax-deductible, True the Vote sought to become a 501(c)(3).) This week, True the Vote sued the IRS in federal court, asking a judge to enjoin the agency from targeting anyone in the future.

First of all, if it weren't for massive spending by out of state tea-party groups, Scott Walker would have come a lot closer to being a Fox News contributor than he did. He's the last person to talk about how the tea-party Astroturf crowd was intimidated from using the idiotic system by which the IRS is supposed to police elections to its advantage. Second, "several conservative groups" were "delayed" by the IRS's attempts to do its damn job, albeit using criteria that everyone now agrees were pretty dumbassed. And, third, let's be real here — True The Vote was trying to become a 501(c)(3). Let's check the actual IRS requirements on that one, shall we?

The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals. The term charitable is used in its generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public buildings, monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency.

Personally, I'd have looked a little closely at these folks myself, unless there are some "human and civil rights" involved in having elections come out the way you want them to. It may be that these folks are simply ginning up the we-wuz-robbed angle as part of the run-up to 2014 and 2016. But I think the nation is going to want an offer of proof that it really wanted to be governed by Willard Romney, but that it was denied its wishes because the paperwork involved got hung up in channels. The Romney campaign was pretty damn visible. It spent $990 million. I don't think it missed those two donors Fund talked to very much.